I feel like I need to start with an apology. I’m so sorry. You were just minding your own business, scrolling the internet, and living your life blissfully unaware that late-night TV host Stephen Colbert recently premiered a Skibidi Toilet sketch featuring President Joe Biden’s head on CBS. And now I’ve ruined everything. I’m sorry.
Before we hop right into this horrible, horrible thing, let’s provide some context. Last year, Skibidi Toilet—a strange web series featuring heads popping out of toilets and invading the planet—became some of the most popular videos on YouTube. The series is created using the same tools and assets behind Half-Life and other Valve-developed games. The Skibidi Toilet series has hundreds of millions of views, and apparently at least one of those viewers included a writer on Colbert’s late show staff.
On May 22, during Colbert’s opening monologue on The Late Show on CBS, he discussed the recent news that President Biden’s campaign was looking to hire a “Meme Page” manager. He then jokingly displayed two old memes featuring Biden’s messaging before announcing “and of course, for the very online: Skibidi Biden.” And then this played on national television.
There is something incredibly depressing about watching this “Skibidi Biden” clip. The way it goes on too long. The fact that CBS cheaped out and didn’t license the actual song. The feeling of death slowly embracing you as you watch the poorly animated 2D head of Biden bounce up and down on a somewhat flesh-colored pipe inside a toilet likely grabbed from Shutterstock. It all sucks, man!
And sure, with the full context of the meme manager bit, this is a little more forgivable, but still…what are we doing? What the fuck are we doing, folks?
How many people watching a random episode of The Late Show in 2024 know what this is? Even Colbert jokes that viewers should ask their grandchildren about it. What a horrible situation for any poor kid unlucky enough to be asked by his grandma to explain “that dancin’ toilet joke on Colbert.”
The one silver lining is that we all know that God is dead and the laws of humanity no longer exist. So that’s neat.
